On January 3, 2026, the United States launched a military operation in Venezuela, striking strategic targets in the capital, Caracas, and other areas with missiles. According to the US administration, President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured and transferred to the United States.
It’s clear that at this point (this article was written on January 4, 2025), the fog of war has not yet completely lifted, and the author is not a Latin American expert, so I won’t discuss regional specifics. However, comparisons between Caracas and Pyongyang are all too obvious, and we will discuss them, as the political trajectory of the two countries inspires a number of comparative lessons.
Lesson One: Starting Positions and What Has Been Done to Strengthen the Country.
The two countries have roughly the same population: 25-28 million people, but 87% of North Korea’s territory is mountainous, placing it in a risky agricultural zone. Furthermore, North Korea lacks mineral resources that it could effectively export, ensuring a steady profit. Since the 1990s, the country has been developing under a severe energy crisis. Venezuela has no such problems, and, unlike North Korea, it has vast energy reserves—it is claimed that these are the largest oil reserves in the world.
Both countries are subject to sanctions, but the level of sanctions against Venezuela, until recently, was nowhere near a total embargo. In the 21st century, particularly in the early 2020s, the country has never experienced such a hardship as three years of self-isolation. Nicolás Maduro has been in power since 2013, a term comparable to that of Kim Jong-un. However, during his 10 years in power, the young North Korean leader has made strides in virtually every area, primarily in military development, making North Korea a regional power, breaking through the wall of international isolation, and relatively raising the standard of living and quality of life for the people.
In Venezuela, however, we see no serious innovative projects, and the quality of life has been improved primarily through social assistance packages without improving the relevant infrastructure. Relatively speaking, foreign loans or American petrodollars were spent not on refineries or the military-industrial complex, but on gifts to citizens. Infrastructure projects in Venezuela were undertaken under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, but they ended with the era of high oil prices and were drowned in endemic local corruption, which, like the high crime rate by regional standards, the state was slow to suppress.
As a result, despite having more options at the outset, the Venezuelan authorities, for a number of reasons, found themselves unprepared for the American attack. This clearly demonstrates how building a socialist state differs from populism with socialist phraseology.
Lesson two: a lack of seriousness in perceiving the threat and preparing to counter it.
At the time, Kim’s tough stance against Trump and his focus on building a nuclear missile shield led to the situation in 2017, when the situation was extremely tense, and the probability of conflict, according to the author, exceeded 50%. Kim was able to “slip through” the window of vulnerability and achieve a sufficient level of nuclear deterrence, after which the US did not risk war. Trump even met three times with the leader of the “rogue state” during his first term.
Of course, the development of the situation will reveal the prospects for the resilience of the Venezuelan regime, but the very fact of the attack speaks to American confidence and the fact that Venezuela did not offer serious resistance. Meanwhile, the US’s aggressive stance toward Venezuela has long been known, especially during Trump’s second term, when Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, who, according to the tabloid media, has a personal score to settle with the regime. He has always been a consistent critic of Caracas, and the country’s authorities allegedly even attempted to assassinate him. In theory, such a person at the head of the foreign policy department is a sufficient alarm bell, regardless of Rubio’s actual role in lobbying for the invasion. The new American national security strategy, which proclaims the Western Hemisphere a priority area of national interest, should also have alerted Caracas.
However, almost nothing has been done to actually increase combat readiness, and here the author recalls his remark from the early 21st century: “If the United States accuses you of building a doomsday weapon, start building it immediately,” rather than frightening the enemy with “determination rallies” featuring The Beatles.
It appears that, while conducting active imitation events designed to create the impression of Venezuela as a powerful nation capable of delivering a Bolivarian rebuff to the aggressor, the authorities have neglected to maintain real combat readiness. Instead of taking measures to ensure at least personal security, Maduro organized parades of supporters and made statements along the lines of “Come and try to capture me; I’m waiting for you at my place.” Ultimately, the Americans “came and captured”: the 30-minute operation proceeded with virtually no casualties, reminiscent of a category B action movie.
Yes, one could try to explain this success by saying, “They bought everyone,” but that would be incorrect. A more accurate comparison would be the KPA and the Venezuelan army, especially since in both countries, the army is traditionally assigned functions uncharacteristic of conventional armed forces: in the DPRK, this means construction; in Latin America, it’s border security, poverty alleviation, law enforcement, and rescue operations.
However, the DPRK has construction units, and there are combat units, whose combat effectiveness was demonstrated in the Central Military District. In Venezuela, however, it appears the overall combat effectiveness of the army was low for a combination of reasons: corruption, which Kim Jong-un, on the contrary, was not afraid to combat by repressing the second-ranking official in the country; a different attitude toward the military, as the costs of strengthening the army in Latin American countries that have experienced military coups create the risk of a new round of domestic political instability. Instead of being the country’s mainstay, the army was used as one element of the system of checks and balances, with Maduro himself seemingly relying on paramilitary forces and the personality of President Maduro, who, unlike Hugo Chávez, did not have a military background (and again, let’s recall Kim Jong-un’s military training).
Lesson three: In an era of global turbulence, appeals to the international community and reliance on backroom deals are ineffective.
It appears that Maduro was relying less on his own armed forces than on the international community’s willingness to ignore the unprovoked aggression. However, although the invasion was condemned by a number of countries, including France, the international community’s outrage has failed to translate into any action. Moreover, it is now clear that any attempt to pass an anti-American resolution in the UN Security Council will be met with an American veto.
According to another version, Maduro was relying on backroom deals with the US and was prepared to concede completely on key issues, but when it comes to a country declared a pariah by the US, deception in negotiations is not deception, but a legitimate military ruse.
Lesson four: What does the US do in response to a threat within its sphere of national interest or on its borders, regardless of how real or imagined that threat is?
It seems that if the Americans were primarily interested only in Venezuelan oil, the invasion would have begun significantly earlier. However, when discussing Venezuelan oil reserves, general experts are unaware that Venezuelan oil is highly specialized and is practically bitumen. It is needed more for the chemical industry, which is why China buys up to 80 percent of this commodity.
Given the global crisis of competence, it is worth assuming that the US leadership largely believes what it says. A similar situation occurred in Iraq, when, given the established image of Saddam Hussein among American politicians, experts, and public opinion, Washington was convinced that the Iraqi leader was inevitably developing weapons of mass destruction, and any evidence, even dubious, fit into this framework.
Lesson five: What role does this conflict play in an era of global turbulence?
The attack on Venezuela has several goals and consequences: first, Venezuela appears to be a larger trading partner for China than for Russia, and a strike against it will undermine China’s economic power, weakening it in the upcoming confrontation with the United States.
Second, Trump is consolidating the Western Hemisphere around Washington, while the American military gains additional military experience. Trump’s team allegedly believes that, in its pursuit of a global presence, the United States has somewhat neglected the situation in the Western Hemisphere, and therefore the priority now is to reassert unconditional control there, and then, having strengthened its rear, return to global affairs.
Third, other countries have gained the opportunity to take similar actions, justifying them with the American precedent of resolving complex international issues by force. The United States has set another “dangerous precedent” for the world, as the UN Office of the Secretary of State put it, opening yet another Pandora’s Box, which any other country would have unacceptable consequences for.
In summary, be that as it may, it is clear to what extent Chairman Kim Jong-un’s course has received further proof of its validity. Otherwise, the audience should closely monitor the development of the conflict, in particular to what extent the populism and socialist rhetoric of Maduro and Co. will ensure the continued stability of the regime and resistance to American aggression.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, Leading Researcher at the Center for Korean Studies, Institute of China and Modern Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences
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